I agree with Brooks that the gangsta minstrel show has some negative impact on the culture. But to ignore the root causes of the French uprising is a copout, a punk move, an act of cowardice.

Read for yourself.


Gangsta, in French

By David Brooks, NY Times 11.10.05

After 9/11, everyone knew there was going to be a debate about the future of Islam. We just didn't know the debate would be between Osama bin Laden and Tupac Shakur.

Yet those seem to be the lifestyle alternatives that are really on offer for poor young Muslim men in places like France, Britain and maybe even the world beyond. A few highly alienated and fanatical young men commit themselves to the radical Islam of bin Laden. But most find their self-respect by embracing the poses and worldview of American hip-hop and gangsta rap.

One of the striking things about the scenes from France is how thoroughly the rioters have assimilated hip-hop and rap culture. It's not only that they use the same hand gestures as American rappers, wear the same clothes and necklaces, play the same video games, and sit with the same sorts of car stereos at full blast. It's that they seem to have adopted the same poses of exaggerated manhood, the same attitudes about women, money and the police. They seem to have replicated the same sort of gang culture, the same romantic visions of gunslinging drug dealers.

In a globalized age it's perhaps inevitable that the culture of resistance gets globalized, too. What we are seeing is what Mark Lilla of the University of Chicago calls a universal culture of the wretched of the earth. The images, modes and attitudes of hip-hop and gangsta rap are so powerful they are having a hegemonic effect across the globe.

American ghetto life, at least as portrayed in rap videos, now defines for the young, poor and disaffected what it means to be oppressed. Gangsta resistance is the most compelling model for how to rebel against that oppression. If you want to stand up and fight The Man, the Notorious B.I.G. shows the way.

This is a reminder that for all the talk about American cultural hegemony, American countercultural hegemony has always been more powerful. America's rebellious countercultural heroes exert more influence around the world than the clean establishment images from Disney and McDonald's. This is our final insult to the anti-Americans; we define how to be anti-American, and the foreigners who attack us are reduced to borrowing our own clichés.

When rap first came to France, American rappers dominated the scene, but now the suburban immigrant neighborhoods have produced their own stars in their own language. French rap lyrics today are like the American gangsta lyrics of about five or 10 years ago, when it was more common to fantasize about cop killings and gang rape.

Most of the lyrics can't be reprinted in this newspaper, but you can get a sense of them from, say, a snippet from a song from Bitter Ministry: "Another woman takes her beating./This time she's called Brigitte./She's the wife of a cop. " Or this from Mr. R's celebrated album "PolitiKment IncorreKt": "France is a bitch. ... Don't forget to [deleted] her to exhaustion. You have to treat her like a whore, man! ... My niggers and my Arabs, our playground is the street with the most guns!"

The French gangsta pose is familiar. It is built around the image of the strong, violent hypermacho male, who loudly asserts his dominance and demands respect. The gangsta is a brave, countercultural criminal. He has nothing but rage for the institutions of society: the state and the schools. He shows his own cruel strength by dominating women. It is perhaps no accident that until the riots, the biggest story coming out of these neighborhoods was the rise of astonishing and horrific gang rapes.

In other words, what we are seeing in France will be familiar to anyone who watched gangsta culture rise in this country. You take a population of young men who are oppressed by racism and who face limited opportunities, and you present them with a culture that encourages them to become exactly the sort of people the bigots think they are - and you call this proud self-assertion and empowerment. You take men who are already suspected by the police because of their color, and you romanticize and encourage criminality so they will be really despised and mistreated. You tell them to defy oppression by embracing self-destruction.

In America, at least, gangsta rap is sort of a game. The gangsta fan ends up in college or law school. But in France, the barriers to ascent are higher. The prejudice is more impermeable, and the labor markets are more rigid. There really is no escape.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com

So their relating gang rapes to gangsta rap?!? That's a bit of a stretch.

sinisterpentatonic said:

Yes, it a huge stretch, however I don't think anyone can really deny the negative effect some rap/hip/hop has had. I'm not saying all of it is negative, but much is. To be honest, I can't stand even watching a rap/hip/hop video anymore. I used to watch them and thought they were creative and different, but now I just laugh and think most of them are a joke. How many more videos do we have to see with the same shit? Crotch grabbing, asses shaking, guns toting, bling and luxury cars everywhere. How very boring!

The world needs some real fucking music that doesn't glorify violence, gangs, mistreatment of women etc, etc.

kisscamille said:

I agree with a lot of that.

But the myopia of Brooks and folks of his ilk, looking for a boogeyman in Tupac Shakur to blame for the riots, is astounding. Based on what I have heard and read about the plight of people of color in France, the riots were cooked up in a strange brew of racism, lack of opportunity and disenfranchisement. Gangsta rap was simply the garnishment for the stew.

Brooks also doesn't realize that gangsta rap evolved out of the conditions spawned by "Morning In America," which resulted in a war on drugs that locked up generations of black men (fathers) for decades, while at the same time, public works programs were cut that could have provided venues for young men to turn to Thurgood Marshall as their models, and not N.W.A. And it wasn't Ice-T that started the LA riots, tho he and Cube and others predicted it would happen.

The root causes of America's and France's socioeconomic problems do not begin and end with Tupac Shakur.

Brooks said:

Are both poster boys for things that neither really represent and simple reference points for those who would wish to simplify those issues into black and white? I really don’t know enough about the situation or that part of French society to comment, though if I want to know about movements in hip-hop over there I’ll get it from Fab Five Freddy.

Unless someone can show me an article prior to this incident in which Brooks wrote in detail about music in these neighborhoods than his information and arguments are based on a few weeks of investigation; certainly not enough for me to accept.

Personally, even though I hold little or no allegiance to nations, French citizens do not seem too eager to hear what Americans have to say, especially as it relates to their society, though they seem to be enamored with discussing aspects American life. Let’s say nothing and just let them have their cake and eat it to on this one,

no need re-re-resurrecting Tupac’s name for something that the arab guy who wrote PolitiKment IncorreKt or the arab guy who wrote Bitter Ministr are responsible for. It’s really not important that I know the names of these “Terror Rappers” anyway, I mean they are the ones responsible for the riots, them and Osama Bin Laden, right?????